In today's business environment, CFOs who want to be effective strategic leaders must be able to quickly and seamlessly access and leverage key insights and data—which puts the technology and tools their companies currently use in the spotlight.

Many finance leaders are trying to manage an expanding list of responsibilities with outdated technology stacks. However, a recent survey by commercialization platform Zuora found that nearly three-quarters (68%) of finance leaders saytechnology gaps limit their ability to make key improvements, such as improving cash flow, forecasting, or other aspects of the order-to-cash (O2C) process.

"In this environment, especially when change is happening so quickly, the CFO has to... take ownership of the order-to-cash process," Todd McElhatton, chief financial and operating officer of the billing and payments software company, told CFO Dive. "It impacts their ability to run the business, to report on the business, but more importantly, it often impacts whether they can provide the company with the tools needed to launch next-generation products."

The need to take ownership of the process

The need to take ownership of the O2C process stems from the ongoing evolution of the finance leader's role—companies are increasingly asking CFOs to drive strategy while managing traditional finance. However, for finance leaders to assume this ownership, they must shift their mindset toward technology decisions.

In McElhatton's view, one takeaway from the Zuora survey is that "in many cases, CFOs haven't really taken the time to understand technology or take ownership of these decisions," he said. "Because frankly, these decisions have a huge impact on our ability to do our jobs and, more importantly, on building the infrastructure that allows the company to grow and adapt to changing markets."

The company's Modern Finance Leader Report, released Tuesday, shows that a majority (89%) of finance leaders are increasingly expected to serve in a strategic advisory role. However, 70% of respondents said their current technology stack hinders this goal.

According to the survey of 900 finance leaders—including controllers, CFOs, and chief accounting officers—technology gaps or lag in the O2C process, as well as a lack of clarity on ultimate ownership of the process, can hinder a company's ability to strike creative deals and often lead to more manual work for already overburdened teams. For example, 82% of software-as-a-service (SaaS) leaders said "fragmented O2C ownership leads to operational challenges."

McElhatton said finance leaders "don't want to be in a situation where you don't have the technology to support selling what your product teams have developed."

McElhatton emphasized that finance leaders playing a central role in SaaS and technology decisions is critical to avoiding these bottlenecks. On the SaaS side, "you have to look at it as... this is not a systems decision, it's a business decision," he said.

"It's about: How are we going to operate? It affects not only your ability to bill customers, but also revenue recognition and product launches. So for today's CFO, if you're not deeply involved in these decisions, I think in the long run, that's going to be a real disadvantage for the company," he said.

Breaking through bottlenecks

McElhatton is no stranger to the expanding scope of the finance leader's role—he said the shift in many ways feels like a natural evolution of the position. As an alum of enterprise software companies such as Oracle, VMware, and SAP, McElhatton joined Zuora as finance leader in 2020, when the company was operating as a public company, he said.

The commercialization software provider went private in February as part of a$1.7 billion deal with technology investment firm Silver Lake, according to a company announcement. McElhatton took on his combined role in May—including oversight of operations, IT, legal, and other categories—according to his LinkedIn profile.

CFOs are already in a key hub position within the company—the CFO and CEO are "the only two people who can see the entire company," McElhatton said.

Having that perspective puts finance leaders in an ideal position to take ownership of strategic decisions—not only because it lets them see all the components of the business and where resources are best deployed, but also because it allows them to understand where key bottlenecks are over time, he said. With his broader mandate as COFO, "I can help unclog those issues faster," McElhatton said.

When it comes to technology decisions, CFOs should also apply this perspective to ensure choices are made that lay the foundation for the company's long-term growth. While it's impossible to have "perfect clarity" on the impact on the company over the next four or five years, "you want to make sure you have a set of operating systems and processes that give you the flexibility to handle different business models."